Activism and the Arts: On Equal Pay
It goes without saying that artists are also often activists. We create work that hopefully says something about society. We work towards change. We work for the benefit of society and the promotion of culture. Activism can also stem from art (as is the case of the Harry Potter Alliance, which looked at J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and figured out ways they felt the book was saying something about society, and began to make change.) The Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) aims to decrease World-Suck. Our artistic director, Rachael, is a member of one of their chapters.
And so when the HPA began to create a campaign around the Hunger Games, one that aims to change the very real problem of income inequality with #myhungergames (go there, it’s worth reading), Rachael got excited. Not because she came from an underprivileged background—she was one of the “poor kids” at her school but to call her life disadvantaged would be an insult to the real disadvantaged kids out there—but because this is something where arts and activism very heavily align.
We're talking about income inequality and the words “starving artist”. Of course income inequality is bigger. It’s about people who work full time on minimum wage and often in a job they don’t feel fulfilled in just to make ends meet, who still cannot provide properly for their families. This is a huge problem with society. Artists and Activists are cut from the same cloth. This is the kind of issue people like us make work about. But what we don’t talk about very often (except when trying to raise money for our next show) is the income inequality within the arts. Of course we are only asking for minimum wage, and that's still income inequality. But considering currently those who work on the fringe circuit often work for nothing, even minimum wage is worth something.
We read an article recently about paying artists and, as artists, asking for payment. Too often we are told that we must pay our dues. After all, there are actors out there making millions. There are programmes (which are subsidized by the way) who can pay very reasonable wages without resorting to crowdfunding and where those who work for them can pay their bills. If we aren’t there, we are told, there must be something wrong with us. We must be too lazy or not good enough. Our work must be ignored. Or we must pay our dues and work for free until we are “discovered”.
But who does this “discovering”? Is not the goal of the artist to create work that makes a difference? Then obviously rather than wait for someone to put our work out there for us, we must take it upon ourselves. But where does that leave us with being paid? Too often we aren’t. And this is a situation that needs to stop because it means we have to work a minimum wage job to get by and still make our work for free. And it is a deterrent to great work. We had some feedback on our Indiegogo campaign earlier in the process, which said that other companies could create this work without asking for money; or if not, that other companies’ actors worked for free. So why can’t we?
Because that is not how to create good work. Work can be great when a great idea meshes with a lot of time. But we live in a capitalist society where we have to pay for water and heating and food. We can’t just create work for free and spend all our time on our work. We either have to do something to support that free work, or (and this is the better option for everyone) we need to start asking people to pay us. We need to start paying our artists what they are worth, especially in the early stages of a career. It won’t get rid of all income inequality, but it will be a good start.
